


What's Left Behind

by Halfblood_Fiend



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II
Genre: Angst, M/M, Past Relationships, Sleepless nights
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-04
Updated: 2016-08-04
Packaged: 2018-07-29 09:29:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 604
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7679176
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Halfblood_Fiend/pseuds/Halfblood_Fiend
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Anders disappears from their bed but Hawke soon finds out some people are better left alone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What's Left Behind

When Hawke reached out to take Anders’ hand, he found nothing but empty sheets. Cold, empty sheets. At first, he panicked, but as sleep quickly relinquished his brain, he relaxed.

But then he worried.

Hawke donned his robe, strode past the mabari snoring on the floor, and searched for the mage.

He checked the drawing room only to find Anders’ desk abandoned and his inkpot corked. He checked the sitting room only to find that the fluffiest couch was missing its usual dozing occupant. He checked the kitchens only to find it in the same order as it was after dinner. As he checked each room of the estate, Hawke’s heart started to pound painfully with fear.

Gone. Anders was gone.

Swallowing his panic, Hawke took deep breaths in the middle of the entrance hall As he tried to decide where Anders would go. The clinic? The Chantry? The Gallows? Nothing came to Hawke that made any sense. He spun in circles, debating over and over whether to dress, grab his bow, and set off into the night to find Anders. He was somewhere in Kirkwall, and by the Maker, Hawke would tear the city apart stone by stone to find him if he had to–

A long creeping shadow cast over the wall and Hawke’s heart leapt to his throat. He froze and stared wild eyed at the windows looking into the courtyard. The panes blazed with the full moon high behind them.

_Just a tree_ , he told his racing pulse. Nothing outside, especially not a templar. Certainly not a templar that would take Anders away.

Then the silhouette shifted again and Hawke recognized that fine sculpted profile.

The bare pads of his feet thudded on the floor as he ran to the courtyard door and flung it open. He grinned wide and relieved, ready to shout his joy at finding Anders when he realized that the mage hadn’t even acknowledged his presence. Hawke’s smile faltered and slipped from his face. All at once he felt something was wrong.

Anders stood statuesque in the middle of the small courtyard and stared unblinking up at the sky. His borrowed clothes hung off his frame like useless sails with naught a breeze to even ruffle his loosened hair. Moonlight wound its way through leaves pressed too close together to illuminate the solitary man in rays of monochrome. In the courtyard surrounded by ancient trees, Anders looked more frail than Hawke had ever known him, one lost man unraveling the cosmos.

And just when Hawke had begun to think that he should leave Anders be, the mage spoke, barely a whisper between his lips, barely a movement to disturb the universe.

“Do you know why I loved Karl?” 

Hawke’s heart plummeted. He didn’t want to hear this, he knew. He didn’t want the reason Anders had abandoned their room to be this. He didn’t want what he knew would come next.

He knew he would hate himself for not asking.

“Why?” Hawke had tried to whisper but his solitary word sounded harsh even to him and it crashed against his ears. The monosyllable disturbed the courtyard, shattering the half-dream in which he had caught Anders.

“Because he gave my life _color_.” 

Then beautiful Anders burned away. He melted with his final grating word and a blast of cobalt. Swirling blue magic overpowered even the moonlight and bathed the courtyard in sickly shades of vengeance. Magic pierced through flora and choked out the shadows until the world was all sapphire. 

In only a moment Anders crackled and was gone. Hawke had known all that would be left.


End file.
